Outcomes of Systemic/Strategic Team Consultation: II. Three‐Year Followup and a Theory of “Emergent Design”

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Abstract
This is the second in a series of articles on an experimental, small-sample study of systemic/strategic team consultations. It presents the 3-year outcomes of clients whose 1-month progress was described in an earlier report (12). The 8 therapists in the current study originally were asked to select two ongoing cases matched for difficulty (N = 16). While all cases continued their regular therapy sessions, one of each therapist's two cases were selected at random to participate in a "Milan-informed," five-part team consultation. At 3-year followup, clients who participated in team consultations had maintained significantly higher levels of goal attainment than nonteam clients (p less than .05). For interpreting these results, we propose a developmental theory ("emergent design") to explain therapy impasses, team effects, the impact of termination, and long-range outcomes of therapy.